Eli Meyerhoff šŸ‰ Profile picture
Abolition, decolonization; anti-Zionist, diasporist Jew https://t.co/h8XAgkIT3w Book - Beyond Education: Radical Studying for Another World
Jun 26 ā€¢ 15 tweets ā€¢ 6 min read
Jewish Life at Duke University presents their "Antisemitism 101 Training" as impartial. But from attending the training, I found it to be Zionist indoctrination. So I wrote this op-ed.
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dukechronicle.com/article/2024/0ā€¦
Screenshot: "The Chronicle - Unmasking indoctrination: The Zionist agenda behind Duke's ā€œAntisemitism 101 Trainingā€ guest column - The training failed to acknowledge the rich history of anti-Zionist, diasporic Jewish movements that have presented alternative visions for Jewish safety.  Eli Meyerhoff, Ph.D., program coordinator and visiting scholar at Dukeā€™s John Hope Franklin Humanities Institute" Jewish Life at Duke presents their "Antisemitism 101 Training" as politically impartial. See:
2/15 students.duke.edu/belonging/icr/ā€¦
text: "When I signed up for Jewish Life at Dukeā€™s "Antisemitism 101 Training," I hoped for an impartial, educational approach to understanding and combating antisemitism on campus. However, from attending the training along with two fellow Duke staff members, I found that it instead indoctrinates participants into the political project of Zionism."
Mar 23 ā€¢ 6 tweets ā€¢ 3 min read
The kids are rising upā€”defying Zionist bullies and refusing Israel's genocide in Gaza!

Their teacher was attacked by Zionists for having a Palestinian flag in her class. After the admin made her remove it, her students walked out and recreated the flag on her board.
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Photo: a group of students protest outside of a school, holding signs that say "teachers for a free palestine," "free free palestine," "intifada intifada," and "Is this scary DPS?"
Photo: a Palestinian flag drawn with dry erase markers on white board in red, black, white, and green, with books beneath.
"Freshman Brandon Goodson wants his math teacher back.
Goodson and approx. 30 other students walked out of class this morning at 9:30 to protest math teacher Kayla Thompsonā€™s absence. ā€œItā€™s not fair,ā€ Goodson said. ā€œWeā€™re standing for her because she canā€™t do it by herself.ā€"
2/6 Photo: An African-American student holds a sign that says "Durham for a free Palestine, Palestine will free us, end the Genocide!!!!"
Mar 12 ā€¢ 11 tweets ā€¢ 5 min read
Zionists are scared of Jonathan Glazer.

He refuted their hijacking of Jewishness and the Holocaust to justify their occupation.

He also pointed to how we can resist: the girl in the film who resisted by hiding food for prisoners.
Solidarityā€”the opposite of blocking aid.
šŸ§µ1/11 A split image. The left side is a black and white image from the film, Zone of Interest: "A young woman, rendered almost ghostlike by the camera, clandestinely moves through a construction site beneath a railway that runs into the camp. She places apples in the earth for the starving prisoners on work duty to find the following day." The right side is a photo of Israeli protesters blocking an aid convoy headed for Gaza, with one protester holding an Israeli flag and another holding a sign that says "no aid for the enemy." The scene of resistance: "A young woman, rendered almost ghostlike by the camera, clandestinely moves through a construction site beneath a railway that runs into the camp. She places apples in the earth for the starving prisoners on work duty to find the following day."

2/11 Black and white image from the film, Zone of Interest: "A young woman, rendered almost ghostlike by the camera, clandestinely moves through a construction site beneath a railway that runs into the camp. She places apples in the earth for the starving prisoners on work duty to find the following day."
Feb 25 ā€¢ 8 tweets ā€¢ 4 min read
How do Israeli universities contribute to Israel's propaganda machine?

šŸ§µ of @mayaywind on how Israeli universities aid state "Hasbara":

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(From a @radioagainst interview on her book, Towers of Ivory & Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom)
#BDS Images of book cover for Towers of Ivory and Steel: How Israeli Universities Deny Palestinian Freedom by Maya Wind. Photo of an Israeli university behind the title. Photo of the author, Maya Wind (a white Jewish woman with curly brown hair, wearing a black shirt). With a quote: "Hasbara is what Israel calls its state propaganda, and Israeli universities have stepped in time and again to aid this programming" Israeli universities have institutes, resources, and syllabi for state propaganda purposes.

For example, the Comper Center makes propaganda "to help the Israeli state rehabilitate its image in the international community and evade accountability for its war crimes."

2/8 Text: "Maya Wind: Hasbara is what Israel calls its state propaganda, and Israeli universities have stepped in time and again to aid this programming in a number of ways. One of the ways that they do this is they actually have institutes and resources and syllabi that they put towards this state project. One example is the Comper Center in the University of Haifa that produces propaganda and talking points in order to help the Israeli state rehabilitate its image in the international community and evade accountability for its war crimes and routine violations of Palestinian rights and i...
Feb 14 ā€¢ 15 tweets ā€¢ 6 min read
Why is it so hard for people to recognize Israel's violence in Gaza as genocide?

Robin DG Kelley points us back to 1948, when the UN failed to identify colonialism as genocidal. Against this "colonizer's justice," South Africa's #ICJ case is a redemptive act.

šŸ§µ1/14 Screenshot of Robin DG Kelley on the Makdisi Street podcast, with caption: "that failure to identify colonial domination and colonial racism and violence as genocide is what's haunting this moment." Robin Kelley is a Black man, wearing round glasses, with black headphones. The ICJ ruling helped legitimate the term genocide "for a lot of people who were on the fence."

2/14 Text: "Robin DG Kelley: ā€¦ my first reaction was that the [ICJ] ruling itself was pretty extraordinary. I think that at first people might have felt a little bit of disappointment because there wasn't the call for a ceasefire, and technically, the ruling itself may not have the enforcement mechanisms. But to me it kind of made sense. It made sense because, one, for a lot of people who are on the fence, it legitimated the term genocideā€¦ In other words, it's been used. In fact the Movement for Black Lives got into all this trouble because in the August 1st 2016 statement, they used the te...
Feb 6 ā€¢ 10 tweets ā€¢ 4 min read
Why do so many German Antifa leftists support Israel against Palestinians?

-> Here is a šŸ§µ of @Emilydische explaining the strange phenomenon of the Antideutsche:

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(Transcribed from this šŸ”„ @thedigradio interview with @DanielDenvir -
) thedigradio.com/podcast/the-geā€¦
Photo of a protest in Berlin, Germany with white protesters carrying a banner that says "antifa means solidarity with israel!" and flags, including an Israeli flag, rainbow LGBTQ+ flags, and antifa flags. The Antideutsche emerged in the early 90s, in response to German reunification, as an anti-German nationalist movement, which "was pro-Israel and also pro-American," in response to the anti-imperialist German left who were "involved with the Palestinian militant movements."
2/10 Text: "Emily Dische-Becker: The Antideutsche are a phenomenon that started in the early 90s, in response to reunification and it was explicitly anti-nationalist, anti-German nationalism, and it was pro-Israel and also pro-American as a response to the sort of anti-imperialist German left of the 70s, which had been quite explicitly and in fact actively involved with the Palestinian militant movements. You had various German, West German militant movements, including Baader-Meinhof and others who trained with the PLO or were involved in plane hijackings and that kind of thing. The sense ...
Feb 1 ā€¢ 20 tweets ā€¢ 7 min read
Government acts conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism make the trope of ā€œthe self-hating Jewā€ into a policy that suppresses criticism of Israel.

One way to counter this is to dismantle the discourse of self-hating/self-loving Jews.
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1/20 Photo: A protester holds a sign reading "Anti-Zionism Is Not Anti-Semitism" during a November 4, 2023 demonstration in Berlin. The protester is white, wearing glasses and a keffiyeh. - (Photo: Sean Gallup/Getty Images) Responding to the threat of anti-Zionist Jewsā€™ protests to the Zionist status quo, acts equating anti-Zionism and antisemitism are intended to dismiss their critiques of Israel as self-hatredā€”a form of irrational, emotional bias.

2/20 A Jewish protester holds a sign saying "am I really a self-hating Jew if I criticize the Israeli Government's unethical and inhumane policies?" - while standing on a street corner.
Jan 28 ā€¢ 13 tweets ā€¢ 5 min read
Zionists often accuse Jews who criticize Israel of being ā€œself-hating Jews.ā€
Hereā€™s a šŸ§µthat dismantles this trope and counters it with a view of anti-Zionism as an affirmation of humanity.

1/13 Image: Screenshot from the show Curb Your Enthusiasm with Larry David saying "Let me tell you something, I do hate myself, but it has nothing to do with being Jewish." Video still of an older white man, wearing glasses, and a white woman. As an anti-Zionist Jew, rather than feeling shame over being a Jew, I feel ā€œanger at what other Jews are doingā€ through their support of Israel, which oppresses the Palestinians.

(Text from Mike Marqusee, _If I Am Not For Myself: Journey of an Anti-Zionist Jew_, p. 290)

2/13 text: "Some Jewish friends have told me they feel shame over Israel. I feel anger, disgust, frustration but not, I think, shame except in so far as I don't do enough to put a stop to the horrors. The anger I feel is indeed more intimate, the compulsion to protest acquires a more personal character, than it would if I were not a Jew, if these things weren't being done in my name, spun out of a history I share. Still, it's not shame over being a Jew. It's anger at what other Jews are doing."
Dec 14, 2023 ā€¢ 4 tweets ā€¢ 2 min read
ā€œPalestinians did not choose the identity of their occupiers. Their resistance is not antisemitic; it is anti-colonial.ā€

- a crucial distinction by @agelender, from her essay, ā€œEquating Anti-Zionism to Antisemitism Is a Slap in the Face to Jews Like Meā€

commondreams.org/opinion/anti-zā€¦
Text: ā€œ Palestinians did not choose the identity of their occupiers. Their resistance is not antisemitic; it is anti-colonial. By stripping the word antisemitism of its essence and equating it with the interests of white supremacy and Western imperialism, we dishonor the legacy of our Jewish ancestors. Instead of their memories being blessings, Zionists exploit our dead to enact the same horrors on someone elseā€™s sister, father, or child.ā€ - Amanda Gelender ā€œā€¦by smearing people who speak out for Palestinian rights as ā€˜antisemitic,ā€™ Zionists (most of whom are Christians) dilute the word, distract from genocide, and further endanger Palestinians and all who stand with them, including Jews.ā€

commondreams.org/opinion/anti-zā€¦
Dec 6, 2023 ā€¢ 16 tweets ā€¢ 6 min read
With Zionists, every accusation is a confession.

The witch hunt to label critics of Israel as ā€œantisemiticā€ distracts from Zionistsā€™ own history of antisemitism.

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1/15 Screenshot from The Nation magazine: Text - " Politics / December 5, 2023 The House of Representatives Rules That Anti-Zionism Is Antisemitism  After a more than four-hour hearing of the House Education and Workforce committee, the resolution passed, with only 14 votes against it. Chris Lehmann" With image of "Representative Virginia Foxx (R-N.C.), committee chair, right, and Representative Bobby Scott (D-VA), committee ranking member, left, listen to testimony during a House Education and Workforce Committee Hearing on antisemitism at the US Capitol on Tuesday, December 5, 2... Early Zionists constructed an image of the ā€œnew Jewā€ or ā€œHebrewā€ in contrast with the ā€œYid,ā€ a caricature of European Jews.

E.g., Ze'ev Jabotinsky: ā€œbecause the Yid is ugly, sickly, and lacks decorum, we shall endow the ideal image of the Hebrew with masculine beauty.ā€

2/15 Photo of Ze'ev Jabotinsky in 1935 - A black-and-white headshot photo of a white man wearing round-lensed glasses, with short hair, wearing a suit and tie. (From Wikipedia https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ze%27ev_Jabotinsky )
Jan 5, 2022 ā€¢ 9 tweets ā€¢ 4 min read
Adams says out loud an oft-ignored pillar of the education systemā€™s capitalist curriculum:
a vertical, hierarchical imaginary.

-rising from K to 1st-12th grades to higher ed for higher skills (vs low skill)
-school non-completers stigmatized as *drop*outs.

šŸ§µon this imaginary: In 13th c. Lower Germany, a religious convert group called the Sisters and Brothers of the Common Life instituted ascending levels in their schools.

These first "graded levels" were the institutional basis for educationā€™s vertical trajectory of individualized development. An old, black and white illustration of a schoolmaster readi
Jul 14, 2019 ā€¢ 6 tweets ā€¢ 7 min read
I wrote this book out of LOVE for my friends and comrades

in DEFIANCE of our precarious academic conditions

as REVENGE against academia for killing us

& as a TOOL for destroying the educational machine that destroys us.

Please enjoy the intro here: upress.umn.edu/book-division/ā€¦ What would you do if academiaā€™s precarity was killing your friends and pushing you out?

I wrote a book for revenge ā€” as a toy/tool/weapon to mess with, defy, and dismantle the academic-capitalist regime.

Please check out the intro chapter here: upress.umn.edu/book-division/ā€¦
Mar 13, 2019 ā€¢ 13 tweets ā€¢ 5 min read
As a USC alum who had a full ride thanks to my (not faked) SATs, I might defend a myth of meritocracy in light of #CollegeScam. But nah.

Why assume education must be defended?

Unpopular opinion: education is & always has been a tool for perpetuating the class system.
[THREAD] Rather than defending higher education, letā€™s take an abolitionist approach to university studies.

Education is one possible mode of study among many alternatives.

Educationā€™s elements emerged as reactions to people's struggles bound up with alternative modes of study.